Comments on: So Critical Thinking is OK After All, As Long as You Live in Iran

By: jitterbug212

jitterbug212 — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 03:18:05 +0000

The Iranian people ARE a hell of a lot more sophisticated than the American people.

By: Kevin Carson

Kevin Carson — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:08:05 +0000

The irony of it is that so many people in this country with authoritarian personalities and in-group/out-group fixations (”Let’s teach ‘em a lesson!”) had those traits beaten into them as children, and they never stop to consider that their enemies respond to brutalization by becoming similarly authoritarian and xenophobic.

I remember hearing on NPR about some study of the Palestinian suicide bombers on the West Bank, and it turns out they almost universally experienced seeing their fathers humiliated during IDF house-to-house searches. And they were humiliated, coincidentally, in the same way American troops humiliated Iraqis during house-to-house searches in Baghdad. Let’s see…. Go into a conservative, patriarchal culture, rope entire neighborhoods off for house-to-house searches, invade a home without warning and scream at women and children as fathers are forced to stand by helplessly and watch. The little boys who witness such things store up those memories for later, you’d better believe.

By: MBerner

MBerner — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:01:43 +0000

The neocons look like leaders to those steeped in the exclusivist and pathological theology/ideology of Christian Zionism, Christian nihilism, and American exceptionalism, and that group includes most Americans, unfortunately.

“An eye for an eye” and related in-group/out group theories and practices may have worked well in primitivce eras when societies were organized at the tribal level. In an age of WMD and world-wide instanteneous communication, such notions are racially suicidal.

The ethic of reciprocity, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” is the preferred alternative.

A lasting social system without a morality predicated on spiritual realities can no more be maintained than could the solar system without gravity.

Each moment has its sickle, emulous
Of Time’s enormous scythe, whose ample sweep
Strikes empires from the root.
–Edward Young

By: estebandido

estebandido — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 20:51:34 +0000

If I might speculate a bit, I think what they get out of it is an iron-clad sense of being in the right. The neo-con logic boils down to “might makes right,” which is an irresistible viewpoint to those who have the might. Whatever our interests might be, we have the moral obligation to achieve them. Anyone who might disagree will be crushed. And they will deserve it, as any media outlet would be happy to explain. They hate us because of our freedom, which only goes to prove how free we are, and only really evil people hate freedom, which leaves us no choice but to bomb them.

To put it another way, when you’re on the winning team, it sure is easy to think that you earned it (and that those on the losing team likewise earned it). There’s a strong psychological need to feel that something as drastic as military action against another country is justified. So, if the neo-cons can get their agenda (war and more war) enacted, they are guaranteed instant public support for it, and their positions retroactively become far-seeing and wise. The neo-cons suddenly look like people we would like to be our leaders.

By: planetaryjim

planetaryjim — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 05:06:26 +0000

The neo-conservative morons want to have wars with everyone. I think they should be individually encouraged to go to war with Iran, by themselves. It seems idiotic to continue funding undeclared wars against undefined enemies for the apparent purpose of enriching military contractor companies, also known as death merchants. That General Electric and Westinghouse have their talking heads promote war and death is unsurprising. I’m not sure what the rest of these talking heads get out of it.